


Speaking

by hephaestus



Category: SKET Dance
Genre: Gen, Manga Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 20:49:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4194405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hephaestus/pseuds/hephaestus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Switch's perspective on what it feels like to speak again for the first time in forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Speaking

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaaah my first fic, and it's for SKET Dance. Rather short, but I really wanted to contribute to the community here because it doesn't seem like many people are writing things for this beautiful series. Switch is such a cute baby omg i can't even handle his story i hope i wrote him okay

His voice cracks when he speaks for the first time in forever.

The words stumble over each other on his tongue in their excitement to leave his mouth because he’s _speaking_ , he’s _talking_ and it’s with his own damn mouth instead of a laptop for once—he’s so excited that tears start to prick at his eyes. He thinks he might cry.

But instead he grins, he grins so hard that his mouth hurts and his cheeks hurt and his face hurts because he feels like he is experiencing what it feels like to be free from himself for the first time ever since his brother died.

“I’m proud…of you guys.”

It’s surprisingly strange to hear his own voice again. His voice is deeper than he remembers it to be—rougher. But then he remembers how he’d combined his voice with Switch on his text-to-speech program a month after he passed away.It made his voice sound lighter, both familiar and foreign. It had been a desperate attempt to save himself from suffocating with guilt, playing Switch’s voice over and over again to hear his brother come alive even if it was just for one more second.

He remembers listening to it for the first time, robotic voice blaring from the speakers he’d accidentally turned up too loud. Switch had sounded so close to his heart at that moment, so alive. He had mistaken it as a positive feeling, thinking that ‘maybe this was enough’.

Kazuyoshi only realizes now that it was not.

No software in the world can replace Switch’s warmth, his smile, his thirst for knowledge. It’ll never be enough, never ever. And for the first time, Kazuyoshi thinks that maybe it’s okay.

He hears pride reverberate at the back of his throat, something that he never even realized voices could do: he is _proud_ and he can hear it by the way the corner of his mouth turns up just slightly—‘I am ready to move on’, it says.

Bossun and Himeko can hear it too, he thinks.

Himeko is the first one to burst into laughter. It’s an organic laugh, one with all the barriers stripped away. She is a friend, raw and open and loyal and trusting. Bossun follows right after. He’s making that ugly face he always makes when something huge happens, pursed lips and squinted eyes. His laugh rings in Kazuyoshi’s ears.

They laugh with heads thrown back and mouths open wide, and before he knows it, he’s laughing too, laughing so hard snot comes out shooting out of his nose and still he laughs.

The three of them laugh and laugh and laugh and then next thing he knows he’s sobbing, crying so hard he can’t even speak because it’s been such a tough ride, it’s been so hard and so long and so seemingly endless. He feels so vulnerable, crumbling down like this in front of them but he looks up through his tears to see that Himeko and Bossun are crying just as loudly, they’re all hurting and they’re all being freed and maybe it’s okay to cry like this.

He thinks he finally sees the light at the end of the tunnel. and it’s not coming from the glow of his laptop screen.

**Author's Note:**

> I'M A BLUBBERING MESS HE MAKES MY HEART HURT i'm so glad the mangaka let him open his shell at the end because he really deserves to move on!!! 
> 
> also thank you if you finished reading this, i am so humbled and touched because this is my first post on the internet for people to read and i don't think people even look up SKET Dance anymore. my goal is just to have touched a single soul ;_____________; thank you


End file.
